Of Curveballs And Lemonade

This post is going to look suspiciously like a post whining and explaining why I have pretty much no writing news since the last post. I hate reading those and I hate writing them even more. Sometimes, whether we like it or not — and we mostly “not,” shit gets in the way of our writing mojo, however.

There are a lot of clichés that involve life presenting you with unexpected (and mostly negative) events. I’m a sports fan so I tend to gravitate toward the sports metaphors. Therefore, my life usually throws me curveballs.

Nice, big, juicy, sneaky, 12-6 curveballs.

I’m really better at fastballs. Around 80-85 mph.

But what would life be without a little unexpected adventure? And what people are usually the best at providing said adventure? Yarp — family.

I can usually do without the human race as a whole (writers don’t count because we’re a whole species unto ourselves) but I do anything I can for my family when they need help and/or support.

This is where the curveball(s) come in. Last week life threw my mom (and, by extension, me) one of the bigger curves I’ve seen in my three and a half decades. I’m not going to go into gory details here but suffice it to say that a quick drive back to the ol’ homestead and a couple of days of frenzied “grab what’s most important for now,” an all-night 12 hour or so drive back home, and an adventurous tour for my brother through the airports of the south (mostly Charlotte) have brought my mom to live, at least temporarily, here in Plano with me and my little nuclear family.

I’m not complaining at all. I love that I’ll get to see Mom more and I especially love that my boys will get to know Grandma P better. I just don’t tend to do well with unexpected stuff. I manage and eventually do okay but that first step is usually nerve-wracking and frustrating.

I still have at least one more trip back to southern New Mexico (maybe this time I’ll remember to stock up on green chiles) on the horizon in the next few weeks but things should start settling down again soon.

So I guess I’ll get back to making my multitude of batches of lemonade while trying to sneak in some writing time. Especially since I’ve found I have to modify Veil’s hospital scene because I mistakenly made it a multi-story building.  Oops.